Sinn Fein

The Central Bank is currently inviting artists and designers to submit their design for a silver coin to commemorate the Killala woman, who was born in Mullafarry in 1874, studied medicine and went on to found a children's hospital in Dublin in 1919.

Dr Kathleen Lynn was the Chief Medical Officer during the 1916 Easter Rising, and was elected a Sinn Fein TD in 1923.

Almost 5 million euro has been spent on ambulances to Mayo University Hospital over the past seven years, and according to Erris based Sinn Fein Senator Rose Conway Walsh it’s too high a price to pay when the service is not under HSE control.

The senator says the spending €4.8 million on private ambulances since 2011 does not constitute value for money and the money should instead have been spent purchasing and staffing new ambulances.

She claims that the ambulance services in the HSE have suffered from years of cuts, under investment, and privatisation of ambulance services with over €31 million being spent on private ambulances by the HSE nationally since 2011.

Mayo University Hospital and the State, she believes, need to ensure that we have a high quality, publicly owned stock of ambulances instead of putting money into the pockets of private companies which does not constitute fiscal prudence.

Despite a motion unanimously agreed by Castlebar Councillors to respect the request of Castlebar Tidy Towns, not to erect political posters on polls in the upcoming election, Sinn Fein Councillor Joe McHale is not convinced that it will stop such actions when an election is called.

It was the Sinn Fein Councillor himself, who proposed the motion at the November meeting of Castlebar Municipal District and it was passed, but after the process he was informed that the motion was not worth the piece of paper that it was written on.

Sinn Fein candidate posters in the Presidential Election were erected last month in Castlebar, and at the October meeting of the authority the party was criticised for doing so.

Cllr McHale said, when the request of Castlebar Tidy Towns was conveyed to him, he had the posters taken down and that was what led to him putting forward the motion to ban all political posters in Castlebar at the next election.

It has since emerged, however, that political posters at ground level as distinct from being erected on polls, are acceptable to Castlebar Tidy Towns.

It’s “petulant and immature” of both Fanna Fail and Fine Gael not to at least talk to Sinn Fein about government formation. That’s the view of the new Sinn Fein deputy in Mayo, Rose Conway Walsh.

She is among the 47 new TDs nationally entering the Dail for the first time today.

Deputy Conway Walsh spoke to Midwest News today before entering the Dail and she described as historic her party leader being proposed as Taoiseach today during Dail proceedings, regardless of the outcome.

The passing of the Sinn Féin Fair Rent Bill at second stage in the Dáil during the week has been welcomed by Mayo Senator Rose Conway-Walsh

She claims it could put €1,500 per year back in the pockets of renters and aims to freeze rents for a period of three years.

The average rent in Mayo, according to Daft.ie is €762 a month for a three bedroom home or €545 for a one bedroom apartment. This is between 9% and 10% increase year on year.There are only 78 properties to rent in the whole of Mayo this week and most of these are priced out of the HAP scheme making it extremely difficult for anyone to find a property to rent.

The Senator says her party’s rent Freeze (Fair rent) Bill 2019 would freeze all rents on existing and new tenancies for a period of three years. The legislation also calls on the Minister for Finance to introduce a refundable tax credit for renters, equivalent to one month’s rent.

All seats in the 33rd Dáil have been filled with Fianna Fáil the largest party by only one seat.

No party has more than 40 seats in what is the most fractured Dáil in history.

Cavan Monaghan was the final constituency to declare with the two sitting Fianna Fáil TDs Brendan Smith and Niamh Smyth re-elected.

That pushed Micheál Martin's party out to 38 seats, the most by one party, but Fianna Fáil's second worst ever election result.

Sinn Féin has had its best ever election, with Mary Lou McDonald just one behind Fianna Fáil on 37 seats.

Fine Gael managed to get 35 TDs elected, better than the 2002 result even though they got a smaller percentage of the vote.

There's 12 Green TDs in this Dáil, 4 times what Eamon Ryan had four weeks ago.

Labour lost a seat to return 6 TDs, while the Social Democrats won 4 extra to also return 6.

Five Solidarity People Before Profit TDs join Aontú's Peadar Toibin and 20 Independents.

No combination of the largest two parties can form a government, meaning there could be many weeks of negotiations ahead as politicians examine the historic result of this election and try to shape it into a government.

Irish Water is to provide extra traffic management on Friday and Sunday evenings in Charlestown, while work is ongoing on sewerage pipes in the town.

That was confirmed by local Sinn Fein Cllr Gerry Murray today.

Cllr Murray had contacted Irish Water to see if they could provide additional personnel to man the traffic management in the town, especially on Friday and Sunday evenings due to the sheer volume of traffic.

Irish Water confirmed they will do that and they will suspend works for the St Patrick’s Weekend, so that the parade can go ahead.

Cllr Murray also appealed to people to shop local, despite the ongoing works.

He also said that Irish Water hope to have finished the works in the next four weeks.

A Mayo Sinn Féin Senator has called for an independent investigation on the historical prescribing of valproate to pregnant women.

Rose Conway-Walsh says it is now clear that hundreds of children have been born with disabilities as a direct result of the of the prescribing sodium valproate (epilim) which is a drug licensed in Ireland for the treatment of epilepsy and bi-polar disorder.

Senator Conway-Walsh says the crux of the matter is that parents were not informed of the risks or risk-reduction measures they needed to put in place, therefore they continued to be prescribed valporate during pregnancy.

A Mayo Senator has questioned a Minister on why it takes four years to build a flood defence wall, as in the case of Carrowholly, Rosmindle and Kilmeena.

Sinn Fein Senator Rose Conway-Walsh raised the issue during a debate on flooding in the Seanad with Minister Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran.

The residents in these areas are waiting four years to have such a wall rebuilt to ensure their homes are protected from flooding.

Senator Conway-Walsh says the situation is simply disgraceful. She says there must be a better balance between the views of the local community and the consultants that are brought in at great cost to draft reports on the issue.

The Senator also raised the issue of insurance companies only wanting to offer cover tot those that will never claim. She asked Minister Moran to seek cabinet support for the Sinn Fein Consumer Insurance Contracts Bill, that would mean that insurers would no longer be able to use technical excuses to avoid paying out on claims.

A Mayo Senator has questioned the commitment of Fianna Fáil to saving rural post offices after their own motion on the issue was poorly attended by their own senators.

Sinn Féin's Rose Conway-Walsh says there was only one speaker from Fianna Fáil on behalf of the motion and only three Fianna Fáil senators turned up to vote.

She says there is no use in attending mass rallies calling for the protection of rural post offices if those same politicians are not going to use every avenue available in the Oireachtas to achieve this.

Senator Conway-Walsh was strongly critical of Fianna Fáil's attempts to explain away the 732 post office closures that happened when they were in Government.